https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/jun/09/eu-europe-elections-2024-results-news-updates-live-latest
I'm absolutely shocked
This is fairly standard stuff in French politics. These arrangements are called electoral alliances rather than coalitions becuse, well, they're not coalitions; they're electoral alliances. The agreement is for co-operation in relation to an election, usually a specific election — co-ordination of candidates, and agreement on a common platform for the election. There is no agreement on going into government together after the election. In French political culture, negotiations on the formation of a government happen after the election, not before. This is because negotiations on government will nearly always involve other parties, who were not included in the electoral alliance, and they will always include the President of the Republic, who appoints the Prime Minister.
While an electoral alliance, if successful, might form the basis for an agreement on government after the election, it often doesn't.
Macron's letter is an invitation to the moderate left to dump the far left and join him. The problem is that he's is in the position of the boy who cried wolf, because he promised during previous second round campaigns (particularly during the 2022 legislatives) that if the left supported his candidates so as to block Marine Le Pen, he would listen to their concerns and run a more left wing government. Once elected of course, he did nothing of the sort.
His advantage of course is that the left wing coalition is a shaky structure which presumably won't last long as it is anyway, so there will be a temptation for some if the posts offered are big enough.
My guess - and that's all it is - is that it is too soon for the left's coalition to break up, but it will happen sooner or later.
So is the tactical electoral pact over now?
The groups that signed up to it have now gone their own ways or formed new alliances?
I see Macron has rejected the resignation of his PM.Would that perhaps be because he wants to see who is the first to pull the plug on his now minority administration?
Apparently Macron's father has said that his decision to call those snap elections was made in advance of the bad European elections.
Is he a master schemer? He does have the eyebrows to go with that aptitude.
I mean if you take over the party run by an anti semite it is going to be pretty tough to make your case.
Not just anti semitism they have plenty of candidates that are racist including stating that Northern Africans should not hold high office. They did force the nazi cap candidate to step down but as long as these incidents keep happening in large numbers with candidates they have little chance of removing the racist tag.
Of course the far right will always have the issue that they will attract racists and not many racists are smart enough to keep the quiet part quiet
https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-france-elections-2024-national-rally-paris-jordan-bardella-emmanuel-macron-europe/#:~:text=French%20investigative%20journalism%20outlet%20Mediapart,its%20support%20from%20their%20campaigns.
Is Jean Marie Le Pen a holocaust denier and an anti-semite?
He founded the party, and the party contains many members and representatives from his time as leader.
It's always "When", not "If" with the far right. Always.
This was her making these comments, not her dad...
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/10/europe/france-marine-le-pen-holocaust/index.html
Being raised by a holocaust denier does not make their offspring one also, it is not some sort of hereditary thing passed down through generations you know.
The main concern for the French people now is the eagerness of the radical left fanatics to increase uncontrolled immigration into France nevermind reduce it. Macron also joining up with them must horrify the vast majority of French citizens into their futures and serious questions need asking why are doing so against the will of the vast majority of the public.
The vast majority of people throughout Europe are asking the very same questions of their leaders and voices are going to get louder and louder.
And Ireland has Israeli Ambassadors that makes similarly outlandish claims, it doesn't say a whole lot. An opposition to Israeli foreign policy does not amount to antisemitism. Meanwhile Marine was raised by a noted Holocaust Denier.
Strange, earlier on the thread, you were supporting RN and here you claim to be concerned about anti-semitism. So I guess you are switching your support to Macron now?
And yet, one of the people interviewed in an article you referenced says:
In an interview in Paris, the writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy said: “All the Jews I know agree they will of course never vote for France Unbowed, and they will never vote for Marine Le Pen.”
When it came to RN, he said: “There is absolutely no evidence of a deep change on the matter of antisemitism.”
RN, originally named Front National, was co-founded by Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is well known for his antisemitic remarks. He has been convicted several times of contesting crimes against humanity, including for his claims that the gas chambers used to kill Jews during the Holocaust were only a “detail” of history… Even after its rebranding, RN has continued to face repeated scandals, including election candidates making allegedly antisemitic remarks.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/06/french-jewish-people-second-round-elections-antisemitism-voting-choices
Attacking Grannies as well.
Not quite what the article says is it?
While Moshe Sebbag certainly did not welcome the New Popular Front victories, he ultimately lamented about the mainstreaming of antisemitism in general.
Jewish community urged to leave France following the elections.
And there is more to unpopularity than numbers. There is also the depth of unpopularity wherein we can truly despise a party that has its roots in JMLePen for whom the concentration camps in the last world war were a "detail in history" ,where their candidates are recently seen sporting Nazi hats and ,in all likelihood (a long time since I was in France) odious racist attitudes lurk beneath the surface or perhaps above the surface.
Who are the "other 2" parties that "received far more seats" in this fantasy you have in your head? Do explain.
The New Popular Front is not a party, but an alliance of them, as the graph you posted demonstrates, listing their seats individually.
You've been caught out again, misrepresenting between party and alliance as it suits you, in a self serving argument, trying to cling to something from the political faction you support coming 3rd.
Macron's alliance of parties got more seats than the RN alliance of parties, 148 to 142.
Macron's Renaissance party, as an individual party, got the 2nd highest number of seats, 103.
It was in the graph you posted in Post #307. Therefore, it is clear that establishes the claim as a bad faith argument.
Looking at some of the "how to destroy your economy and make everyone poor" proposals from the NPF
Glad they kept the far right out, but the far left really do live in some sort of magical alternative reality
I am slowly getting how you think. I had it in my head that Macrons party was far and away the most disliked, probably because they lost so many seats, got trashed in the European elections, lost a huge vote share while the other two received far more seats and share of the votes.
Anyway, in a couple of months or so everything will be stable again with the RN just sat on the sidelines watching how everything unfolds. Every terrorist attack, increasing crime, rising numbers of migrants and economic problems will be the problem for those that wanted control.
It probably will be a blessing in disguise because as every day that passes they will become less unpopular just by doing nothing .
Yes exactly: it's just making it explicit for people how they can vote tactically to keep RN out - if that is what they want to do.
It doesn't force anyone to vote against RN if they don't want to do that.
But that strategy only happens, brickster, because the parties in the pact are confident that their supporters will prefer anyone over RN ("if we withdraw, our supporters will vote for the communists rather than for RN") and it only works if the parties are right about that.
What you're pointing to is evidence of how widely RN is disliked.
No I definitely don’t think they would have got an overall majority. Because there was nothing stopping them from getting a majority except the fact that they didn’t get enough votes.
RN did not stand down anywhere - it was the other parties that did that. The voters were entirely free to reject that strategy and to vote for the RN candidate if they wished.
That such a large majority went along with it in the secrecy of the polling booth shows that they agree with that rejection of RN.
There are not enough French people who want to see RN in power to give them a majority.
It’s that simple.
I think it is a racing certainty myself they would of had higher seats, if it would of been over 50% is another matter. The very fact that they came 2nd with 47%+ in dozens of seats in two horse races makes it so. Not that it changes anything now mind you.
I mean they definitely would have won more if no one had opposed them either. Or if another right wing party had been running they potentially could have done far worse.
I mean it seems likely but also many voters would have started tactically voting in round 2 based off of the 1st round.
The voters made their choice and if their candidate had pulled out after the 1st round they could have switched to RN, the fact that they didn't showed the majority were against RN and had a preference for the left.
This is the fundamental idea behind the French people, an unpopular party should not rule because the most popular viewpoint disagrees on minor details and splits the vote. The weirdness in the system meant that this depressed the vote of the parties pulling candidates but it reaches a decent end result.
Edit: if the people were as opposed to the centre or the left as they are on the right they would not have switched their votes for whichever of them stayed in the race.
It does not matter if they use that system or not, just base it on the current system is fine . So do you think that RN would of gained the majority or at least a huge win unless the pact was formed between the two other groups to withdraw 200+ candidates ?
Simple question really.
You mean if France had had a First Past the Post system? They don’t though- and that’s a choice.
I get the system, but do you think that RN would of gained the majority or at least a huge win unless the pact was formed between the two other groups to withdraw 200+ candidates ?
You're missing the point here, and it's odd coming from someone who (I suppose) is Irish and so should be aware of how vote transfers work, ie that some parties are more polarising than others and thus are unable to gain the support needed from a wider section of society that would allow them to transform their points (first preference votes) into goals (transfers in the STV system, extra votes in the second round in the French system).
Your point about the Communists illustrates the same phenomenon, but you seem to think it's a failure of democracy, when in fact it's a way for the widest possible section of society to get behind the elected government. Communism had a significant level of support, but society as a whole wanted "anyone but the Communists". That's a perfectly valid choice to make. And so far, that has also been the case with the far right/Le Pen party.
The RN have the largest number of seats, but are so wildly unpopular among the majority of French society that most voters finally chose "anyone but the RN". As they were entitled to do.
I am going to take a wild swing Francie as you can be sure this has been gamed out. The media goes into overdrive, this time with the slogan of "stop the radical far left communists who will destroy the economy."
So a grand coalition of everyone without RN, Melanchon goes under the bus for the greater good by his new found partners. Raphaël Glucksmann or Greens leader as head of government with a little bit of Macron hidden in the shadows.
Sounds like a longshot but got a chance.
The interesting thing about the distribution of votes is that both Melenchon and Le Pen have both had their best ever showing at an election. If you look at the voting patterns of young people the difference is even more pronounced between the two opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Macron might have been able to stop Le Pen thanks to his voting pact, but that doesn't really address the root issue that France has become a highly polarized society where the centre ground is being abandoned.
I don't really know where France goes from here. In the short-term, it'll probably mean gridlock as no single grouping will have a large enough block of votes. Longer-term, all bets are off really, especially if the economy was to hit trouble.
What does this have to do your previous post?
Pretty conclusive you have no answer to the discrediting of your previous claims, as you have shifted the goal posts again. Grand so, we have established that RN were the most disliked, as evidenced by the pact against them and the number of seats won by that pact.
Can you show us where, earlier in the thread, you showed any concern for the difference in number of seats each party gets versus the alliance they presented themselves to the electorate? And I mean specifically now at the party level. You won't be able to will you? This is just something you jumped onto as a way of consoling yourself for the Rally coming 3rd in the election. That is obvious.
Earlier you incorrectly used the term 'gerrymandering' to refer to the runoff pact against RN, implying it was somehow underhand. It wasn't gerrymandering, so either you are ignorant of the meaning of the terms used, or you are deliberately using them to misrepresent.
Now you have gone off on a tangent about rural versus urban with dog whistling about immigration. How does that change the fact that RN came 3rd?
So there's no real argument here, just disingenuous attempts to cope with the fact that RN came 3rd.
They made an electoral pact only to prevent RN getting more seats.
RN was up against 7 parties with differing views and they won more seats as a block because most of the seats were from big cities that have different demographics than traditional rural areas. Paris for example is probably not the greatest place for a right wing party to gain votes and probably people in rural areas don't want their towns and villages turning into what Paris is becoming.
Given that RN had dozens of votes with 47%+ in two horse race races and lost, it is quite clear what would of happened in a 3 horse race.
Nothing illegal about it, just the way it is and it worked. Same as it worked against the communists for all those years.
If you can't understand the difference between a party and an alliance is your fault not mine. It was repeated enough for you and pointed out to you by others.
